smoke and mirror
by dreamsteampunk
Summary: Dick Grayson is haunted. Mostly by his really annoying cousin.


_A/N:_ _like fun fact dick was eight and he saw five people die and they happened to be his ENTIRE FAMILY? that's fucked up. so fucked up._

 _romani is as accurate as i could make it, but if someone who actually Knows Shit wants to tell me the correct stuff, you are so welcome to._

 _terms used: phral - brother_  
 _kak - uncle_  
 _beebi - aunt_  
 _nais tuke - thank you_  
 _bengalo - devilish_

* * *

Not many people tended to notice, but Dick had never touched iron once in his crime-fighting career. He doesn't keep salt in his apartment, he makes do with other spices. And he was always careful with the bathroom mirror.

He was haunted.

Not, like, by traumas of the past, but that too. More as in 'haunted by ghosts'. His family's, to be specific.

"You know what you need? An identical twin."

Dick turned over in his bed, glancing at the time on his clock. The numbers bleeped back at him in accusing neon red. "Johnny, it's four in the morning," he croaked out, with no small amount of accusing in his tone.

"Crime doesn't rest!" His cousin yelled brightly, sitting on the edge of his bed. It didn't dip under his weight.

"But I do," Dick said, pulling the covers up over his head.

"Aw, come on! Don't you want to know why you need an identical twin?"

"Some of us," he grumbled, "need to sleep."

"And some of us, " Johnny countered, "think that's dumb!"

Dick shifted a bit and cracked one eye open. His cousin was leaning over him, the exact color of incense smoke, and half as material. His skull was vaguely caved in, but he had died before any bruising had begun to show. Floppy black hair (that could make Tim jealous) covered most of the trauma anyways, and his eyes were as bright as ever. Despite being more or less uniformly grey-blue, Dick could swear he could see a bit of brown in those irises.

"Johnny, I have been awake for seventy-nine hours as of now, running on coffee and a couple bags of hot cheetos. I need to sleep, or else I'm pretty sure I'm gonna die."

"Ugh, being alive is so much effort anyways. So high maintenance."

Dick couldn't tell if his cousin was joking or not.

* * *

"Nightwing," Bruce growls over the comms, "report to the batcave."

Dick groaned. It was Sunday, and he was in his apartment. In Bludhaven.

He reached across the table and stuck his comm in his ear. "ETA, like, an hour or something."

"I need you here faster than that."

"Bruce, where exactly do you think I am?"

"Not. Here. Fix that," Bruce said with finality. Dick breathed in through his nose and heaved the largest sigh he'd managed in five weeks. Sometimes he forgot why he'd left, but then he listened to Bruce talk for another five seconds and remembered all over again.

"Coming," he grumbled, ignoring Karla's little whisper of 'whipped!' with as much dignity as he could muster. "Have any of you seen my suit?"

Rick pointed under the bed he was sitting on.

"Thanks, kak ," Dick tossed over his shoulder as he pulled off his shirt. His ghosts respectfully looked away as he started to change.

" Nais tuke ," Rick corrected softly.

" Nais tuke," he amended, zipping up his suit. " Kak ," he added as an afterthought. Romani was still harsh and uncomfortable and spiny on his tongue, with his family dying too soon to have taught him much. His cousin, aunt, and uncle taught them what they could, but it mixed hard with his English, ruining both languages with stutters and missteps. You could hardly tell which was his native language these days.

It felt a bit like rejecting his family, these days.

"Go," Karla smiled, "go save the world again."

* * *

"Man, you look like you just crawled your way out of the grave, eh phral ?"

Johnny's voice was lightly mocking, hovering just behind him as he walked back in. Karla looked up from whatever she was doing on the couch and admonished him.

"John! Don't talk to your cousin like that! He-"

"No, no, it's okay. My fault, actually," Dick smiles, a little bloody at the teeth from coughing it up. He runs his tongue over them and taste residue iron. "Jumped in front when I should have tackled."

"Why won't you go to your bengalo Batman for help?" Rick said from his corner, where he had been quiet the entire time. "Isn't he who puts you into these situations?"

" Kak , it's okay, I swear. It's only cracked, I can deal for a bit. Tim, he was stabbed, they need to focus completely on him right now."

" Cracked? " Karla and Johnny cry out, their tones the exact same shade of scandalised.

" Beebi, phral, please," Dick tries to calm them down.

"No! I'm your older cousin, I'm allowed to worry about you, phral ."

Dick decides not to point out that he has far outlived his cousin at this point.

* * *

He stares at the razor. It sits, innocuous, on the edge of his sink. Right there with the toothbrush and floss.

If he popped it out and ran it down his wrists, it would kill him.

Objectively, he's always known this. He's always known how dangerous certain household objects were, how easily he could die if he put his mind to it.

And he's even wondered. He wouldn't stay on as a ghost, like his family. There weren't many people to mourn him, and as sad as it was, everyone he cared about was dead, more or less.

Of course, he spoke to his dead.

"Are you gonna do it?" Johnny asked, and there was an eager undercurrent in his voice. Dick suddenly felt a pang of realisation. Him dying would mean his ghosts would be free. Him living was an unnecessary burden on three more people.

With difficulty, he swallowed and turned to the mirror. Johnny remained firmly out of the frame, but even so, he could make out bits of smoke dancing across the surface of the mirror.

Dick picked up his razor and pried out the naked metal edge. Carefully, he placed it on the counter, away from the rest of the mess of his daily life.

"Not yet. I- I can't leave yet."

* * *

It's an ordinary scene on the rooftops. Patrol was more or less over at that point, as no sensible criminal (and most insensible ones too) wouldn't carry on any dastardly activities past five in the morning. The sun was just peeking out over the edges of the buildings, and it had splashed over the city with pink and yellow.

Nightwing watched from above, sitting on top of a higher rooftop. His siblings were playing tag, giggling and swinging from platform to platform. Every so often, one of them would glance up at him, before dismissing him in favor of the game below.

"Man, that looks like they're just begging to get their necks broken," Johnny grumbled next to him.

Dick smirked. "You're just jealous you didn't think of it first."

"Yeah," he admitted.

They sat in silence for a bit, before Dick broke it suddenly. "Would it be considered day drinking if it's five AM?"

Johnny considered the question for a second. "Wouldn't know. Never drank that stuff legally."

Ouch. As if Dick needed another reaffirmation that he'd outlived his cousin multiple times over. Poor guy was stuck at sixteen.

"Just wondering," he said, tracking his siblings from rooftop to rooftop. They'd graduated from tag to something kind of like football, which left Dick wondering who exactly brought the ball. Finally, he turned to look at his cousin. "If it's gonna be my last night on Earth, I don't want to be sober."

Johnny did a double take. "Are you sure? Really?"

"Mm. Gotham's in good hands, and it wasn't like anything I was doing was any special. The living world will be fine without me. And I want to see my parents again."

His cousin grinned his brightest, most blinding smile.

"Dying's not so bad phral , take it from me."

* * *

The razor blade is exactly where he left it, glinting gunmetal gray in the harsh lights of the bathroom. He picked it up and pulled his phone out of his pocket.

Making eye contact with Johnny, Karla, and Rick, he slowly dialed the number he knew would always pick up.

"Hey, Alfred, I hate to do this, but I'm going to be gone for a while. Something came up. Can you pick up the package on my table?"

"Master Dick, are you alright? I didn't hear about any of this from the others."

"No, Alfie, everything's fine, thank's for asking! It was a sudden thing, but it's important. Keys are under the doormat."

"Master Bruce would shudder to hear that."

"Well, he's not here, thank god. Thanks Alfie! You're a star!"

"Of course, Master Richard. Regards."

There was the quiet cut off and prickle of an ended call, and he slowly placed the phone on the countertop.

He sat down, careful and slow, in front of a big, reflective glass. His family's appearances slunk across the surface, more smoke than bone.

He pulled a bit of hair out of his way and raised the biting metal to it. One quick slash, and it was all over.

The smoke danced across the mirror as his ghosts left him, one by one.

* * *

 _a/n: cheaper than therapy!_


End file.
